Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

To withdraw the stimulus prematurely, as the Liberal-National Party has urged, would pull the rug out from under the recovery. I mentioned yesterday that our annual economic growth is 0.6 per cent—the best of any advanced economy. However, employment growth is not about getting back to one per cent, bearing in mind that we are at 0.6. It is not about getting to two per cent of economic growth. For employment to grow, we have to get back to trend growth of three per cent and more. The NAB survey forecast that domestic GDP for 2009 will rise by 0.6 per cent, 2.1 per cent in 2010, with unemployment peaking at 6.7 per cent in 2010. Unemployment is currently at 5.8 per cent. So there will be jobs lost even with the most optimistic forecast. (Time expired)